“Getting Back to the Beginning”
...llege is considered to be the doorway to a successful career which statistically is less common in Blacks and Hispanics. For whatever reason Blacks and Hispanics on average, scored lower than almost all other races in High School G.P.A and SAT scores, even when coming from a well educated family. Bowen and Bok point out that “one third of the population will be black and Latino by the time today’s college student is at the height of their career” (Monk 301). Clearly more underrepresented minorities MUST be encouraged to attend college if our nation expects to be a powerful, functional, diverse working country. Skeptics argue about how ready for college these students are. Are students, admitted based on race, capable of keeping up with the level of work at such institutions when they would have had lower G.P.A s and testing scores than that of the majority students? Statistics show the clearest indication of affirmative action effectiveness. In addition, studies also show that minorities chose just as challenging majors as Whites and Asains, and more than half of the Black graduates would go to earn advanced degrees(Monk 299). Just proof that given the chance, the job gets done. What about jobs for Blacks who graduate from selective universities? Bowen and Bok report that the average yearly earnings for a Black male, who had attended a selective university was around $85,000, a number 82% higher than the average earnings of other Black college graduates nationwide. So, having established the high success rate of minorities at such institutions as well as the drastic, growing rate at which we need to educate the growing minority population, what will they offer in return from our “favor”? Results show that Blacks involved themselves in “virtually every type of social activity, from social service organizations to parent-teacher associations, Black men were more likely then their white classmates to hold leadership positions” (Monk 299). Opposers to affirmative action respond by claiming that the majority students would feel hostile towards minority students who were accepted when they had not earned the grades needed to be admitted, thus creating unhealthy student relations on campus. However, Bowen and Bok then decided to research the overall satisfactions in college experience of both Whites and Blacks which revealed that over 90% of Whites and Blacks alike were indeed satisfied. They report a lack of significant findings to support any claim of stigmatism on behalf of Blacks. Most surprising yet was that 80% of Whites “favored either retaining the current emphasis on enrolling a diverse class or emphasizing it more” (Monk 300). Carl Cohen opposes such claims and is in strong favor of ridding affirmative action. He discusses the topic of reverse discrimination and the burden it imposes not on “Society” or “White majority” but rather individual citizens. “The penalty to them is great and undeserved. Reverse discrimination is not an invention or hypothesis yet to be confirmed; it is a sociological and legal fact” (102). The majority of anti-affirmative action supporters agree with this idea. The United States is a world which favors the White man. Things come easier to him but there is no question that it is wrong. So isn’t it just as bad to for minorities to receive a special status and have an easier time getting into college? In my opinion, absolutely not. Decades of slavery, lynching, separation, ridicule, removal from reservations, racial slurs and stereotypes, deprived voting rights, and being kept from equal education, are far more damaging not only to every minority in that time, but to society today. Despite “an insidious ...